Diagnosing CIFS Permission denied or "cifs_mount failed w/return code = -13" errors

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • Attempted to mount CIFS share manually, for example:
[root@flandre-examplebox ~]# mount -t cifs -o credentials=/etc/user-file //remilia-examplebox/pachiouli /knowledge
mount error(13): Permission denied
  • Mounting using /etc/fstab with mount -a also fails:
[root@flandre-examplebox ~]# mount -a
mount error(13): Permission denied
  • The following messages are present in /var/log/messages from mount attempts:
Aug  9 22:39:39 flandre-examplebox kernel: Status code returned 0xc000006d NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
Aug  9 22:39:39 flandre-examplebox kernel: CIFS VFS: Send error in SessSetup = -13
Aug  9 22:39:39 flandre-examplebox kernel: CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -13
  • The error Credential formatted incorrectly: (null) appears in verbose mount command output:
[root@flandre-examplebox ~]# mount -vvv -t cifs -o credentials=/etc/user-file //remilia-examplebox/pachiouli /knowledge
----8<---- (output trimmed)
Credential formatted incorrectly: (null)
mount.cifs kernel mount options: ip=123.123.123.123,unc=\\remilia-examplebox\pachiouli,credentials=/etc/user-file,ver=1,user=USER,domain=DOMAIN,prefixpath=DOMAIN/USER,pass=********
mount error(13): Permission denied
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
  • Various types of CIFS servers

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